Observations
by Mara202
Summary: Wherein Slughorn is creepy-stalkerish, Blaise is geeky, and Hermione bursts into tears. Crackfic. HP/BZ slash.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. Etc.

**Rating: **PG-13.

**Pairing: **Harry/boy!Blaise.

**Warnings/classifications:** cracky (although probably not cracky enough for a real crack!fic).

**Summary:** Wherein Slughorn is creepy-stalkerish, Blaise is geeky and Hermione bursts into tears.

**Author's notes:** Written for the **Potent Serpent Deathly Hallows Challenge**. "Write something that you would love to see in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." This would totally never happen in DH, although it would be fun. I got the idea when I said somewhere on the H/B thread at FAP that Slughorn totally ships them, based on the fact that he mentions them at least twice in the same sentence, LOL. I'm pathetic.

Thanks to **merihn** for looking this over for me!

**XxX**

Professor Slughorn's observational skills had saved his life more than once in the past. He would immediately notice if something was out of place, or if someone was acting out of character. Small, seemingly meaningless details that could decide life or death during a war.

Out of retirement and back at Hogwarts, there was no immediate need for his skills any more, but old habits die hard, so he kept on watching, observing people, noticing things.

When news of Harry Potter's relationship with Ginny Weasley reached him, he thought it was out of character for the boy. But, they were young, and weirder things had happened, right? So he forgot about it.

It wasn't until the next year, when Harry and his friends temporarily returned to Hogwarts, for reasons unknown to him, but that had probably to do with rumours he had heard about the Horcruxes having been destroyed and the Final Battle approaching, that he came to suspect that something was not quite right.

Once he had deduced that most of the problem seemed to lie with Miss Granger - which wasn't that difficult, seeing as the two boys only stopped ignoring her to glare at her - and Hermione herself looked, well, miserable - it wasn't that hard to find out what exactly was wrong.

It only took asking her to help with something after class, and a cup of tea with some Veritaserum mixed in, to get her to confess.

As it turned out, little Miss Know-It-All had drugged her friend. With a love potion, no less. Apparently there was a prophecy that said Harry Potter would defeat the Dark Lord with the power of love, and since he had never really been in love, Hermione had seen it as her duty to remedy that.

Slughorn chuckled. Silly girl.

He very much doubted the prophecy referred to _romantic_ love. On the other hand... this gave him a great excuse to test an hypothesis. One he had formed last year, before the case Ginny Weasley had forced him to reject it. But with this new information... he could still be right.

And so, after one week of plotting, he organised another one of his Slug Club parties and executed his plan. It had taken a lot of his persuasive skills to get the Boy Who Lived to come, but here he was.

"Harry! How good of you to come," he boomed when he spotted his first victim.

The Gryffindor didn't seem very enthusiastic to talk to his Potions professor, but walked towards him anyway.

Okay, that was part one of The Plan.

His eyes scanned the room for victim number two. Fortunately, Fate seemed to be on his side today (two spoonfuls of Felix Felicis had made sure of that), as the persion in question wandered past at that exact moment.

"Blaise!" he exclaimed genially, startling the black boy and almost everyone else in the room. Harry even jumped.

Phase two, completed.

Now came the trickiest part of his plan: get them to talk to each other. Gryffindors and Slytherins hated each other on principle, so that might prove difficult. However, if there was one thing Slughorn had learned, it was that when Blaise Zabini started talking about his favourite subjects, he wouldn't stop and wouldn't let the other get away until he had finished.

Slughorn gestured almost imperceptably at a House Elf that was part of the conspiracy.

The House Elf scurried towards them, carrying a plate with one Fire Whiskey and two Butterbeer, containing a mild love potion. If Slughorn was wrong, nothing would happen. If he was right, however... this could get interesting.

The two students eyed each other uneasily. They both tried to hide their discomfort, but they were no match for Slughorns Mad Observation Skills. Now he just had to prevent them from running off until the potion kicked in.

"So, Blaise. You're working on your NEWT project at the moment, I assume?"

"Yes," the Slytherin said slowly, seeming unsure what the meaning of all this was. "It's for Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, on Pascal's theorem and how it can be used to write more stable rune structures."

Harry stared blankly at the other boy, at which the latter sighed and launched into an explanation.

Slughorn mentally grinned. Everything was going to plan. He slowly walked away to watch the proceedings from a distance. Harry shot him a panicked look and tried to get away, but he was stopped when Blaise exclaimed, "Hey! I'm trying to explain something here!"

As Slughorn spotted Hermione, sitting lonely on a table in a corner, he whispered, "Watch and learn, Hermione. Watch and learn," and resisted the urge to cackle.

Blaise kept on talking, and Harry kept on staring at him blankly. Nothing else happened. But just when Slughorn had almost given up hope on seeing his hypothesis confirmed...

An audible gasp went through the room as Harry said something (Slughorn suspected it was something along the lines of 'Oh, shut up'), grabbed Zabini and effectively stopped him from talking by pressing his lips to the other boy's.

They stared at each other for a long time - Blaise's eyes wide in shock, Harry's left eyebrow raised in a way that said 'Well?'. Eventually they seemed to reach a mutual agreement.

Unmindful of the room full of people staring and gaping at them (and Slughorn smirking triumphantly) they left the room, passing Slughorn on their way out.

"You're hot when you talk arithmetics," Slughorn caught Harry saying.

"Arith_mancy_," Zabini corrected. "Arith_metics_ is -"

Harry rolled his eyes and kissed him again, thus effectively silencing him.

The room was left in a stunned silence. Hermione opened and closed her mouth a few times before bursting into tears. Ginny Weasley followed suit mere seconds later.

Slughorn smirked victoriously. Mission accomplished.

Only when the other party guests had regained the ability to speak and the room erupted into excited chattering, he realised he had just outed the Boy Who Lived.

Oh well.

**The end**

**XxX**

Thanks for reading!


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